Saturday, 29 November 2008

An Invitation to the BBC Good Food Show - part 1

Food blogging does have its occasional perks, the odd product to sample, a cookbook to review, or (and this is the foodie's dream) a day out at the Birmingham BBC Good Food Show courtesy of one of their sponsors, kitchen appliance specialists, Miele.

I was up at 5.30 in the morning to meet other food bloggers that had been invited by Miele. We were met by Colin and Molly from Forever Better, Juliet from 1000heads and Kaz from Miele, for a VIP day at the show.

Molly, Colin and Kaz

We had plenty of time to wander around the stands, checking out the latest cookware, new food/drink ideas and kitchen inventions.

It was wonderful to meet up with other British food bloggers. We laughed and, (unsurprisingly) ate and drank our way through the day. These were the other food blogging guests:

But, onto the highlights! A fabulous VIP lunch behind the scenes with the top brass from Miele, which included top chef James Martin doing a private book signing. It was followed by superb seating in the Supertheatre to watch James cooking a 3 course dinner.

While we were having our lunch, there was a plasma screen in the room showing the happenings from the Supertheatre, and guess what? He was actually cooking something from MY blog!!! No, really!Well, ok, it was one of his own recipes, but you can see my version here, Strawberry Cream Cake, minus the spun sugar which is the thing that James is famous for! (I am going to give the sugar another go James, I promise! ;-)

What are those dollops on top?

Afterwards, there was plenty more time to see the rest of the stands and buy foodie goodies to take home. A few of us even managed to squeeze into the Gordon Ramsay show, comprising of great cooking and very little swearing.

I must have been the last one to leave, security had to drag me out of there. It was raining and dark, it took me nearly 4 hours to get home, but was I bothered? Nah! I'll go to bed dreaming of James for many a night to come.

22 comments:

Looks like a great day was had by all Nic! I bet James was counting his lucky stars that he got to rub elbows with you lot! Actually that's a pretty good book. I have had it for a while now and cooked a few things from it, all very good.

Nic, that's brilliant. I was asked to, but somehow the e-mail disappeared from my inbox, so I could never get back to them! I wouldn't have been able to go as I was at a conference, but I wanted to say thanks at least and offer my services for next year. ;0) Looks like you had a fab time!

Haven't been here for a while, so just had a catch up and WOW what a day you had...VIP indeed, how lucky were you...dead jealous here!lolHaven't been to the GFS for years, your photos make me want to go again. Thanks for sharing Nic